The title split checklist: what to look for in a block before you offer

The short answer

Five things decide whether a block is worth splitting, and you can check most of them from the listing and one phone call: it is freehold, the flats are big enough to mortgage, the utilities are already separated, mixed use is welcome, and there is a strategy you can stack on top. Then there is the paperwork to demand before solicitors are involved, and a short list of buildings to leave alone.

These are guidelines, not laws. A strong enough deal can justify breaking any single one of them. A deal that breaks three is not a deal.

The five checks

1. Freehold. The whole strategy depends on holding the freehold and granting leases out of it. A block already held on long leases, or a block let to one operator on a single lease over the whole building, cannot be split in the ordinary way. Blocks of flats beat houses converted into units for the same reason: one acquisition, one legal process, one roof, and the income of many units.
2. Flats above about 30 square metres. The uplift comes from each flat being mortgageable on its own, and lenders are size-sensitive. Above 30 square metres lending is materially easier. Below 30 it thins out. Below 25 is close to no man's land. Studios are lower demand and lower value in most places (a loft studio in a prime London postcode is the exception). Two small studios inside an otherwise good block need not be a deal-breaker; a whole block of tiny studios should be avoided.
3. Utilities already split per flat. Separate electricity, gas and water supplies are what make a flat a genuinely self-contained, individually saleable thing, and lenders react when they are missing. You can separate them after purchase, but that is a development project with its own costs, timescale and finance, not a title split. Price it as one or walk away.
4. Mixed use is a positive. A shop or office underneath is not a problem to be tolerated; it is often what makes the deal. Six or more dwellings in one purchase, or a genuinely mixed-use building, is treated as non-residential for stamp duty in England, which usually means a materially lower bill. And commercial agents price a building on its income, where residential agents think about what a family would pay, so mixed-use blocks are often priced better against their real value. Confirm the tax treatment with your accountant on your own numbers.
5. Can the deal be stacked further? Beyond the base uplift from the split, look for a second strategy on top: supported living, serviced accommodation, a commercial unit that could change use. The best blocks carry more than one way to make the numbers work, and the second one is often what turns a decent deal into a good one.

The paperwork to demand at negotiation, not after

Poor seller compliance is one of the most common reasons a title split stalls. The solicitors we work with are blunt about it: ask for this material while you are negotiating, before anyone is formally instructed.

• Land Registry compliant title plans, or at least enough to see what is communal: the garden, the bin store, the bike store, the hallways.
• An EPC for each flat. A specific trap: some blocks have one certificate for the whole building. If you are splitting or lending against individual flats, the lender will want one per flat.
• Electrical installation condition reports if the flats are tenanted.
• Gas safety certificates.
• The fire risk assessment. Often not realised to be a legal requirement, and the item most likely to generate works that move your numbers.
• An asbestos survey where the building requires one.
• The buildings insurance documents. They reveal flood-zone premiums, exclusions and rebuild-cost issues before you have committed, which matters doubly on a listed building where the rebuild cost can be far higher than the price suggests.

Missing paperwork does not necessarily stop you getting finance, but expect the rate to reflect the risk. It also tells you something: it may be exactly why the building has been hard to sell, and you can make fixing it a condition of the deal or a reason for a lower price.

Three questions for a converted building

Purpose-built blocks are usually straightforward. A house or a commercial building converted into flats deserves three extra questions.

• Was the conversion done to the building standard of its day? If not, and fewer than two thirds of the flats are owner-occupied, the building may be a Section 257 HMO and fall inside a council's additional licensing scheme. We have written that up in full in block of flats, or a Section 257 HMO?
• How does the pipework run? A house converted into flats often has plumbing that weaves through the building. Harmless as one house, a real problem once split, because each flat needs its own stopcock and meter. Individual water sub-meters already in place are a good sign the external work was done properly.
• Is there an old shared heating system? If so, will it be fully removed, or left as defunct pipework that a surveyor will ask about for the next twenty years?

The buildings we leave alone

• A block let to one operator on a single lease. A housing association or care provider holding one lease over the whole building means the units cannot be sold or split individually while that lease exists. Separate leases per unit are workable; one lease is not.
• Section 106 affordable housing restrictions. They typically require future sales at a discount to market value and restrict who can live there, and they run with the property regardless of how many times it changes hands. Some only restrict occupation rather than price, and some can be lifted on application, but never assume that.
• An unreachable freeholder. A conventional split cannot be forced without one. There are workarounds and there are legal routes, and both are slow, costly and sit outside an ordinary property solicitor's expertise.
• A block where the numbers only work if everything goes right. Just because a block can be split does not mean it should be. If the deal only stacks with registration at three months, no void, and the valuer agreeing with your figure to the pound, it does not stack.

One more thing: funds behind you

Title splitting can reduce or remove the deposit, because the lender values the flats rather than the block. That is not the same as doing it with no money. Investors doing this at any scale give personal guarantees and keep contingency funds for the things that go wrong: a registration that drags, a valuer who disagrees, a fire risk assessment that lands works on the schedule. Have options A, B and C before you exchange, not after.

Questions people ask about choosing a block to split

Related reading

• The title split process, step by step The three routes, the two-company structure, and the eight steps.
• Block of flats, or a Section 257 HMO? The three tests, and the licensing trap most landlords miss.
• How a valuer decides what your split units are worth What makes a comparable stand up, and the traps that kill deals.
• How much does a title split cost? Every line of the bill, with the allowances we use.